


boys like you

by juggyjones



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - To All the Boys I've Loved Before, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Minor Bellamy Blake/Echo, Minor Finn Collins/Raven Reyes, Minor Raven Reyes/Miles Ezekiel Shaw, Minor Wells Jaha/Gina Martin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 13:35:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15797601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juggyjones/pseuds/juggyjones
Summary: Clarke did write those love letters, she did address them, but she never meant to send them. But now they're out, and to save her friendship with Raven and not let her life go to chaos, she needs to help Bellamy make his ex-girlfriend jealous.Yeah. Bellamy Blake, who's definitely using her letter to him against her.---or, that high school au heavily inpired by 'to all the boys i've loved before' that you've all been waiting for.





	boys like you

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i've only seen the movie so that's what i'm drawing inspiration and most ideas from, but it's not really going to be like the movie. the similar things are the letter thing, the fake relationship (which isn't even exactly that in this...) and few scenes here and there. aside from that, things are different, just in the same tone, so you can read this without having to fear spoilers.
> 
> with that being said, enjoy!

‘boys like you’

It’s easy to let herself believe it’s Finn beside her as she walks home. There’s no one, in reality, but she can almost see him next to her. He’s a few inches taller, meaning she’d need to crane her neck a little bit to look up to him. Her eyes would fall on his dark hair that almost reaches his shoulders, so beautiful it looks like it came from a L’oreal commercial. He’d catch her looking at him and smile, knowingly, with the dimples popping up and her immediately feeling week in her knees. They’d walk close enough so that their hands touch, accidentally, and he’d talk about the earth, and she’d listen, dreamily.

The worst thing is, Clarke knows  _exactly_ how that would feel like, because that’s how it used to be.

Now, she’s accompanied by her ‘GRL PWR’ playlist on Spotify and wishing she could have either Wells of Raven by her side. Only, Wells rides the bus and Raven always has robotics classes after school.

So, it’s just her. And dreams she should let go of.

Clarke closes her eyes for a moment and the Finn in her imagination stops at the gate. He leans forward, still smiling, wrapping one of his arms around her as he pulls her closer. ‘Till tomorrow, princess.’

Finn kisses her forehead and lingers on just a little bit. ‘Can’t wait to see you again.’

‘Till tomorrow,’ Clarke says.

‘What the hell are you doing?’

Her eyes flash open and right in front of her, on the porch, is Wells. He’s still got his dark green backpack hanging off his right shoulder, grinning a bit even if his brows are furrowed in confusion.

‘Singing,’ Clarke says. ‘What else would I be doing?’

‘Huh. Well, my old man’s still at work, so I’ll be clinging onto the kindness of your old man for a while today.’

It’s standard practice, most of the time. His dad’s the mayor and her mum’s the chief surgeon meaning the two are pretty much never home, so she and Wells have basically been raised by her dad. Which, really, was probably the best way. Wells is like a brother to her now, and he even has his own room at her house.

Well, it’s technically a guest room, but he’s the only one who ever sleeps in there.

‘We’re having meatballs,’ Clarke informs him.

Wells jumps to his feet. ‘Great! Your dad’s meatballs are the best thing in the world. Seriously, I could be dying and they’d bring me back to life.’

‘That’s stupid.’ She unlocks the door and lets him in, grinning. ‘Hi dad! Wells is here for lunch! Also, Wells, if you’re dying, food definitely isn’t going to save you.’

‘Unless I’m dying of starvation.’

‘Then any food would save you. Something filled with more protein or sugar would be a lot better.’

‘Yeah, but it’s the taste that would bring me back.’

They reach the kitchen, still bickering, and sit at the table where their food is already laid out for them. Jake’s talking on the phone, so Clarke doesn’t interrupt, but she figures he must’ve talked to Thelonious even before Wells did to know he was coming.

Days like these, Jake Griffin is a funny sight. In the two families, he’s the only one with an eight-hour job and it’s as a boss at his own company, so he can do lots of stuff at home when his shift is over. Most of the time, that means he’ll be preparing lunch in a three-piece suit if he’s having a video conference later that afternoon, and his hair would get the most of his cooking. He’s tall and fit and fair-skinned and brown-haired, wearing an expensive suit, but his hair is littered with flour and breadcrumbs and sauces and it’s the reason why Clarke loves her dad so much.

She couldn’t imagine coming to a home without him.

Jake ends the call and kisses the top of Clarke’s head. ‘Hey, kids. Wells, your dad called to ask if I can feed you earlier.’

‘Figures.’

‘I’m having a conference in half an hour so I need to prepare. You two wash the dishes and do your homework and when I’m done, we can watch some soccer.’

‘That sounds great, thanks mister Jay.’

Clarke gets off her chair, smiling at her dad. ‘You’ve got something…’ Her hands go through his hair and she gets rid of the flour and the breadcrumbs, but the sauces are still in there and his hair now looks like a bird’s nest. ‘You should go wash your hair before the conference.’

‘It looks like Trump’s hair,’ says Wells, shrugging. ‘If he thinks that’s decent enough for a president, mister Jay can wear it, too.’

Jake looks mortified at that. ‘I’ll go wash it. Thanks, Clarke.’

They both watch him walk away and the moment he’s out of the kitchen, Wells starts cracking up. His shoulders are shaking and he’s got some meatball sauce on his lips, and Clarke can’t help to crack up at that, too.

‘Dude,’ Wells says, ‘his  _face.’_

‘Compare my dad to Trump again and I’ll let you die without meatballs.’

‘Real talk though?’—he raises a fork with a meatball on it, examining it lovingly—‘These things could even bring me back from the dead.’

Clarke just rolls her eyes.

 

* * *

 

The main characteristics of Clarke’s room: big and messy.

 It’s huge, really, with a lot more clothes than she should have, and almost all of it scattered around the floor, the bed, the bean bag, the desk, the chair, and very few of it actually in the walk-in closet. That also means that her school things often get misplaced, only she knows where everything is, because this is her mess and as messy as it is, she likes to refer to it as an organized mess. It’s also too much for her mother to handle any time she enters the room, so she can count on Abby walking away the moment she enters with the intention of cleaning it. She never cleans her room, and insists Clarke should be a responsible young lady, but everyone is quite fed up with the mess in her room.

‘I don’t know why you keep it that way,’ Abby would say, every single time. ‘It’s nothing like you.’

However, it’s a strategic mess, which is why Clarke never cleans. Beneath a pair of stockings, a velvet dress, black jeans, and a washed-out pink blouse is a box, given to her by Finn when they were seven, as a birthday present. It’s blue, has a little purple bow at the top, and contains love letters to Clarke’s crushes.

Her most prized possessions, something no one knows about. Something she isn’t particularly ashamed of, but it’s a thing vital to her and her only, meaning everyone else should keep their noses out of her business.

Even Wells is out of it, because he’d never let her live it down.

Today’s one of those days when his dad is actually home on time, so the plan is for him to lunch there and arrive at the Griffins’ once he’s done – which means Clarke has about ten to fifteen minutes left.

She’s sitting on the floor of her bedroom and, with a cautious glance towards the closed door or her room, takes out the latest letter – Finn’s.

There are four in total. Finn, her other best friend’s boyfriend; Nilyah, from scouts in sixth grade; Bellamy, Clarke’s first kiss from seventh grade; and Lexa, her next-door neighbour until high school. People Clarke doesn’t really like anymore – or is trying not to, in this case.

_Dear Finn,_ reads on the paper in her hands.

_I wish I knew how I felt about you sooner, but maybe I needed Raven to see it. I always thought our friendship would become something more, eventually, because that’s what I thought happens to all boy/girl friendships in the end. Then I realized I was into girls, too, and figured maybe it wasn’t true._

_So when Raven came and you only had eyes for her, and I was still as close to you before, I realized—_

‘You definitely have to clean this up.’

Clarke stuffs the letter back into the box and throws the clothes hastily over it, and stands up trying not to look flustered. ‘Wells! Hi!’

He cocks an eyebrow at her, arms crossed at his chest. ‘What were you doing?’

‘Looking for a book,’ she says. ‘I can’t find my copy of  _Perks_.’

‘That sucks.’ Wells walks over to her desk, picking up some of the clothes. ‘Where did you last see it?’

‘It’s okay, you don’t have to—’ Clarke takes a deep breath and composes herself. He was  _this_ close to finding out. ‘I’ll look for it later. Dinner’s ready, anyway.’

They walk out of the room and she takes one last glance at the clutter of clothes beneath which the box is hidden. She looks at Wells, trying to see if he saw what she was doing or not, and closes the door behind her.

Maybe she’d rather not know.

 

* * *

 

Late Friday nights with Wells are a magnificent thing, really. After watching a soccer game with both their dads—Thelonious arrived a few minutes before it started— and Clarke’s mum, the two stayed on the couch in the living room, having a Brooklyn 99 marathon. With her feet in Wells’s lap and a bowl of popcorn on hers, coke on the floor beside the couch and the house silent as the dads are talking in Jake’s office, Clarke thinks this is the best kind of life she could have.

It’s the regular Friday night, most of the time.

Then, out of the blue, Wells says: ‘I think you should get a boyfriend or a girlfriend.’

‘Mhm,’ she replies, not taking her eyes off the screen.

‘I’m serious.’

‘Yeah, I know, but I can’t hear what Captain Holt is saying over you.’

‘He’s been saying “bone” for the past two minutes, Clarke.’

The screen freezes and Captain Holt is holding onto the doorframe in his office, mouth stretched in the long ‘o’ in ‘bone’. Clarke looks to her right and there’s the remote, sitting in Wells’s hand as the boy looks at her pointedly.

Sometimes, Wells has this kind of look he inherited from his father – the politician look. As in, the ‘now I’m about to tell you something and you’re going to  _listen_ just because I told you to’ look.

Clarke scoffs. Wells sighs. Captain Holt is still frozen in the midst of saying ‘bone’.

Wells raises his eyebrows, points at her, and says: ‘ _You_ need to bone.’

‘Right. Give me the remote.’ She leans forward and reaches towards it, only he takes it up in the air. ‘ _Wells._ ’

‘No. Hear me out.’

Clarke scoffs again. ‘Preacher.’

‘Oh, shut up. You’re spending almost every Friday night with me and it’s not very healthy. You should—’

‘But you’re my best friend,’ she counters. ‘We’re basically siblings. It’s normal.’

‘No, you’re seventeen and you hang out with me because your other friends are on a date every Friday night and you don’t like hanging out with them on Saturdays because they like each other more than they like you.’

Clarke frowns and throws a pillow at him. ‘I didn’t ask to be called out!’

Wells catches the pillow and puts it on her feet, placing the popcorn bowl on top of it. He looks a little bit done with the situation, as he must be—neither of them really likes to talk about love stuff—so he sighs and throws his head back, before he looks at her with the most intention-filled look ever.

‘Clarke Griffin, the only reason why I’m saying this now is because I was meant to go on a date tonight, which I had to postpone—’

‘With whom?’

‘Gina, but that’s not the—’

‘Gina Martin? As in, Bellamy Blake’s first girlfriend?’

There’s a moment of silence – there always is, when Bellamy Blake is in the question. ‘Yeah.’

_Oh, wow_ , is the only thing Clarke can think of.

Bellamy Blake and Gina Martin’s seventh grade fling is one of the most famous relationships in Arkadia High School. Gina was known as the cool girl, the nice one, straight out of some Disney fairytale – and Bellamy was pretty much a no one up to this point. Rumour has it, the only time they kissed was at Gina’s birthday party that year, and never again. When they broke up a month later, suddenly everyone knew his name and Gina got to lead a lot quieter life as other girls started rising in popularity.

Seventh grade is when girls stop being cool for their personalities and looks become all that matters.

‘You’re actually dating Gina Martin?’ There’s a smile on Clarke’s face, once she comprehended what this means for Wells, who’s been quite fond of the girl for ages. ‘Like, for real?’

The smallest of proud smiles appears on his face. ‘Not yet, really, tomorrow’s going to be our first real date.’

Clarke munches on her popcorn, hell-bent on using the opportunity to the maximum. ‘It’s those bus rides, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, she sat next to me last week.’

‘ _Damn_ , Jaha’s got game!’

‘Maybe you’d find a date, too, if you went on “those bus rides.” You never know.’ When Wells winks at her, she’s done.

‘I don’t need dating. I’m fine as it is.’

‘You might become less bitter about Raven and Finn. You might also start going to parties, which, by the way, you’re  _really_  missing out on. You don’t even have to drink to have fun! Which, you know, you could also do.’

‘Come on, I’d rather spend time with you than have to be in a crowd of drunk kids. You know that.’

‘Sure, but I’m not going to be available forever,’ Wells says, and it’s a statement that’s a little bit too true than Clarke would like it to be. He shrugs, picking up the remote from the couch. ‘I’m just saying, it won’t hurt if you start putting yourself out there.’

Captain Holt’s continuation of the ‘bone’ saves her from having to answer that and sure enough, Wells doesn’t mention her singleness again that night.

_It’s because he’s going to be dating Gina, and Raven and Finn are together,_ Clarke realizes when she goes to bed.  _And I’m officially going to be the single friend._

There are worse things to be.

 

* * *

 

Clarke Griffin does not drive. Raven Reyes, however, does, and she’s one hell of a persistent person, so if anyone’s going to make Clarke drive, it’ll be her.

In the morning, Clarke has no problem driving to school, because she drives almost an hour earlier than he should, to hang out with Raven and Wells before classes start. It’s just the three of them, sitting on the bleachers and watching the soccer team do laps and every exercise imaginable as they chew the Subway sandwiches Clarke bought.

‘I drove here,’ Clarke says.

Wells cheers, and Raven says: ‘Damn right you did. That means I’m helping you control your urges to drive into everyone you see after school?’

‘Yeah. Exactly what I need you for.’

‘And why you bought these sandwiches,’ notes Wells.

Clarke shrugs. ‘Gotta bribe you with something.’

‘Hell yeah. I got a sandwich and I don’t even need to participate.’

‘Oh, no,’ Raven says, ‘if I have to suffer, so do you. The backseat needs some attention, too.’

‘Well there would be attention if Clarke had—Hey!’

Wells’s sandwich is now in her hands and she’s frowning at him, trying not to break her character as Raven almost chokes on food between her and Wells. ‘No. Be a good boy. Bad boys don’t get free Subway sandwiches.’

‘Fine.’

‘Fine.’ Clarke gives him back the sandwich and Wells glares at her. ‘Do you think we’ll have a good team this year?’

Soccer is where it’s at for Arkadia High School. Other public schools have football, or rugby, or great basketball teams, but Arkadia has a brilliant basketball team and an even better soccer team. National champions, three years ago. Now, with Blake, Murphy and Miller being stars of the team and already having a confirmed scholarship to whichever college they wanted to, the entire school is hoping this might be the year history repeats itself.

On the field, Blake is sprinting across the field with Murphy by his side. He’s good on his feet, fast and misleading with incredible coordination and balance, and Clarke has to admit it’s a pleasure watching him in his element. Murphy’s good, too – sly and cunning with ways to delve his feet between Blake’s and steal the ball. Miller isn’t bad, either, but he’s a defensive player and the two are forwards so he doesn’t get to shine as much.

‘Wish I could still play,’ Raven says.

Clarke’s eyes fall on the brace on the girl’s calf, and her heart aches a little. She smiles, nonetheless, because Raven is smiling, too. ‘Oh come on, you would’ve put them all to shame.’

‘True, but it would still wipe that smile off of Murphy’s face.’

‘He’s got a good technique, though,’ Wells says.

‘So does Miller. And Sterling. And Blake.’

And so they end up talking about everyone’s technique, which kills the time until classes. Finn doesn’t join them for lunch as he has basketball practice and Wells ends up going home after school by the bus, because apparently he  _really_ has to catch up with Gina. When the time comes, it’s only Raven and her in the car, and Clarke feels like she still isn’t ready to die.

‘I’m not ready to die.’

‘Don’t be a drama queen, this is an automatic. You’re not a bad driver, either, you just need to stop freaking out about every single thing,’ Raven tells her. ‘I also need to be home by four, so you don’t have a lot of time for stalling.’

Clarke turns the key and places her hands on the steering wheel. In front of her are trees, behind her are people, beside her are cars and inside her is panic.  _Cool._  

‘Just don’t hit anyone.’

‘Cool.’

She shifts to rear and presses on the gas pedal and everything happens  _too fast_ , and she releases almost immediately.

She can still see Bellamy Blake in the rearview mirror, and he looks confused and mildly amused.

She just wants to die.

‘Great,’ Raven tells her, ‘you almost killed the star of the school.’

‘Shut up.’

There’s a knock on her window and she doesn’t need to look to know who it is. Still she rolls her window down and  _then_ looks, because Blake’s face isn’t changed at all. Even more, there’s now the tiniest of grins accompanying the amusement as he’s leaning so they could be at eye level and Clarke hates it.

‘Hey there.’

She looks straight ahead. ‘Hi.’

‘You know, people usually check behind them before they start driving. So they wouldn’t hit anyone.’

‘Yes, thank you for the information.’

‘Gonna make sure you don’t hit anyone the next time?’

‘I didn’t hit you.’

He makes a sound that she can only describe as ‘tiny’, a ‘hm?’ or sorts, and it sounds curious and amused and doesn’t fit in with the picture of Blake: six feet, dark curly hair, tan skin, soccer star.

‘If I hit you, I would’ve hurt you, and you’re fine so I wouldn’t say I hit you.’

‘What would you say it was, then?’

‘I bumped into you.’

Blake laughs. ‘Right. Sure. Reyes, make sure she doesn’t “bump into” anyone else.’

‘That’s going to be difficult, but I’ll try,’ Raven replies.

Clarke looks at her and she’s grinning at Blake as if they had an inside joke, and Clarke really just wants to get out of here. Well, for Blake to get out of here, so she can wait for other people to get out of here and then get out of here.

She just – ugh. She  _hates_ driving.

Blake looks at her, still smiling, still leaning so he could look her in the eye. ‘You sure you don’t need any help?’

‘Positive. Go on, we’ll manage.’

‘Thanks,’ Raven adds.

‘As you wish, princess,’ Blake says, and Clarke wants to kill him just a little less than he wants to be home and not here. ‘See you around.’

He walks away and Clarke looks into the mirror and realizes  _cool, I’m fucking blushing_ , and Raven is looking at her kind-of dumbfounded and someone is honking because her car is half-way out of the parking lot, blocking the way, and Clarke is just …

She’s having a bad day.

They manage, in some half an hour or so, to finally arrive at Clarke’s because as it turns out, there was no emergency Raven had to be home for. They eat dinner and chill on her bed and watch Netflix, and it’s nearing nine when Raven says,

‘I should probably tell you I broke up with Finn last night.’

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! tell me in the comments what you thought.
> 
> also, everyone plays soccer because it's the only game mentioned in the show and because it's the only game i actually understand.


End file.
